Ok nice, starting with a tough one. I try to find the middle in my personal believes and go to no extremes, because the word “extreme” makes me think of rich AND poor, love AND hate, peace AND war… But you know if I had to decide I’d definitely choose the side of peace, love, nature, modesty, harmony, respect, equality, tolerance. Together instead of against each other, natural instead of superficial. So these are my values and I hope I also live them.

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Brief us about you as a musician.

My dad introduced me to Joni Mitchell, my sister to Michael Jackson, my mom to her guitar and my brother to his creative mind. I was the youngest, always singing and then playing the guitar. I wrote my first songs when I was fourteen and ever since though there were times I wasn’t feeling comfortable with what I did and then I had a lack of creativity. I studied jazz vocals and performance in Pop music in Munich and Mannheim, Germany, which influenced my musical output. But thinking back I have always loved, again, the middle of both of these genres. I like to play with influences that jazz and soul musicians and singer-songwriters brought up and I write in lots of different musical styles. This makes it so much fun – this is where I can be creative.

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Go into details on what have changed in your life for choosing music as a career.

It wasn’t a deliberate decision to do music as a career; I just kept on doing what I was doing. So the idea of being a musician has always felt very natural to me. I have earned my money with music already before studying at the university. So in my daily life nothing has changed, but a big movement has happened in my mindset. Finding out how to deal with pressure, anxiety and the feeling of being dependent on creativity can be very difficult. Studying at a University has been an incredible chance to meet and learn from other musicians, to enjoy higher education, to open borders and find out about all these different views on music. But honestly this has also been frustratingly overwhelming. I know everyone is dealing differently with a whole lot of input. For me it has been important to have a peaceful space to find output. When I look around I see musicians feeling so close to their instrument, it’s hard for them to separate their performance from their personality. When they feel like they didn’t play well enough, they also think they as a person aren’t worth it. I know this is transferable to not only musicians. But yeah, Ideas and then humans can be so fragile. So the biggest change in my life so far is the recognition of how important it is to grow as a human being and to feed that growth. There is something that definitely changed in my daily life: I don’t get up before the sun is up. 😉

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Tell us the benefits and drawbacks of choosing music as a career.

There are so many benefits of choosing music as a career. First of all many musicians love spending the day as they want. For me as a chaos-person I am struggling finding a productive routine, but being able to do what seems to work best for me and do what I think is important is a privilege.

Drawbacks: discussions about payment and this being a real job and also hard work, and not only a fun hobby.

Benefits: Sharing moments with the audience and other musicians, traveling, meeting so many people and inspiring personalities, there is always diverse program and no boring daily routine…

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Tell us how you will manage fame as an established artist.

I haven’t thought about it yet. I guess staying real and knowing your boundaries is very important, concentrating on honesty and humility… Also being surrounded by close friends and family, having a cup of tea while reading a book in a lonely cabin in the woods and spending my millions on ecologically sustainable projects! 😉

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Let us know the greatest moment of your music career.

Being on stage and feeling that this is exactly the right place to be.

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Tell us the highest amount of money you have ever received from your music career and how it happened.

My Crowdfunding Campaign collected 10.300 € for the album production. And there was another really awesome person, that took care, that everyone who was helping on this record, was being paid a little bit. So this album is financed by so many supporters and I am very grateful for that!

I love touring and being on stage. The more experience I have the more nervous I get before shows. I love playing solo shows and the songs in their original state as well as I love playing with the energy of a band. I also really enjoy touring through living rooms every spring for 5 years with my best friend Hanna Sikasa, playing her and my songs in duo versions and singing harmonies. A very fun part about this is seeing so many different homes.

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Tell us what you will like to change if you have the chance to turn back the hands of time.

Nothing really. Sometimes I wonder how I’d feel and do music, if I would have been touring or just playing music on the streets instead of studying at university. But no matter what way I choose, there are always good and bad things about it. There is nothing to regret, it’s all a part of learning I believe.

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Tell us the most important people that have boosted your music career and how you met them.

Tell us about your moment of rejections as a musician and how you are able to cope and move on.

First of all rejections are part of learning. It all comes back to what you want to do. Sometimes it can be tough to figure out what you want but there is always a way. When I’m struggling I try to remember why I started doing music. I loved singing songs while playing and feeling this timeless space where thoughts just melt away. Also while jamming with others – you all connect. There is so much power. It just makes so much sense that music is around – it’s connecting people. Ok maybe music doesn’t need me, but honestly what does? So I think, this is a very good place for me, because I like it and I can grow. So whatever you do you will do it differently and there will be people who don’t like what you do and that’s totally fine. There is no way to please everyone’s taste and in the end doing what comes out of your hands and your mind will make it special and unique. For now I believe that there are no failures – there is only the process of growing.

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Tell us the most negative comment you have ever received about your music.

From a guy, that has quiet a role in the Germany’s music industry: “I have no idea what you did there on stage and why?”.

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Elaborate on the recording process of this song.

This song has quiet a history. It all started with the song played by me with the guitar. I have been playing it with different musicians in different tempi. I wanted string and horn arrangements so Johannes Stange helped me on that. It took a while to get all the recordings done with almost 20 musicians, but this was fun! First we recorded the rhythm section, then horns and strings, then percussion, then my vocals, then the choir. We produced this album by ourselves – what a huge learning process!

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State the official date of release.

My debut album ‚ “Greenbird” will be released on March 16th. The single‚ “Closer” from the record was released on Feb 16th, we also released on March 2nd a new video to the 2nd single ‚ “Stay”.

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State your artist’s name and elaborate on it.

Jules. My sister called me Jules since I was a kid.

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State the title of the song and the meaning.

The Song “Closer” is the very oldest on the album. I wrote it when I was 19 having a huge crush on my first drummer. I felt so grown up back then. 😉

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State the title of the album and the reason for picking the title.

The album is named after my song‚ “Greenbird”. 5 years ago shortly after I moved to Mannheim I surprisingly found these bright green wild ring-necked parakeets in the trees. While wondering how these tropical birds made their obvious long way to this cold grey industrial shaped city I imagined how beautiful it would be if they could spread peace and love circling the globe. Touring through Germany and asking my audience I found out they fled from a Zoo and settled down in Mannheim and other warm regions. This album is not only a dedication to my time in Mannheim, where most of the songs developed, but also a call for spreading peace and love and a symbol for trying things out kinda wildly, being colorful and creative style wise. Greenbird also means to me moving on and getting up again and again.

Greenbird is…

… Inspired by ring-necked parakeets

… A dedication to Mannheim

… A call for spreading peace and love

… A symbol for following no borders, trying out things wildly, being colorful and creative.